FOO Camp started out as an extended company party for staff, editors, authors and interesting people who’d been involved in or written about by the company. Tim’s company has been publishing books about and promoting open source technology for a _long_ time, so he’s picked up some influential friends along the way (most of whom were nobodies 10 years ago by the way).

The first two years I went, it wasn’t an “a list” party, mostly it was a mix of authors, editors and people from the open source community hanging out, sharing ideas, and drinking. Last year, some people got their panties in a bunch over the invite list, and the event took on an importance that was never intended. I understand that people felt left out, but the event wouldn’t work with 1000 people, and I give credit to Tim for not trying to turn it into TED, where people can pay several grand to have a drink with Larry Page. Instead he invited an interesting mix of nameless people doing interesting work, and big name people who had done interesting work.

Either way, it’s his party and I am glad he decided to do it. Whether you agree with everything he does, O’Reilly is a pioneer, and was out promoting open source, and publishing books about topics nobody cared about (Python for example) long before they became important technologies.